ep 47 audio

In this podcast episode, the host discusses the geopolitical situation and its connection to North American politics. They mention the funding bills tied to Ukraine that are not flowing as expected and invite Elliot Tapper, a political science professor, to comment on this. They also discuss the current state of US politics, particularly focusing on Donald Trump's legal challenges and his potential run for president in the upcoming election. The host and guest talk about the Supreme Court's decision on Trump's eligibility to run and how the Democratic Party may not have wanted this issue to go to court. They also mention the conservative majority on the Supreme Court and the controversy surrounding some of the judges' appointments. welcome to the bill kelly podcast critical discussions in critical times here's your host bill kelly and welcome to the bill kelly podcast, good to have you with us today critical discussions for our critical times, I'm your host bill kelly uh... and we are looking of course at the geopolitical situation and as we've talked about on podcasts previous to this one, you can't look at what's going on in isolation uh... whether it's happening over in Gaza, whether it's happening in Ukraine uh... it's tied to not just geopolitics but to north american politics as well uh... as evidenced by the fact that uh... when we look at ukraine and canada's position and especially the united states position toward that uh... bills, funding bills that are tied up in there that are supposed to uh... be helping with the commitments of prime ministers and presidents made towards ukraine uh... don't seem to be flowing with the degree that we'd like to see them happen so our next guest is going to comment on that and of course as you say we're going to talk a little bit about the u.s. situation too uh... since so much of what's going on with trump and what's going on with the congress and the senate down there are very much tied to what's happening uh... please welcome back to our podcast Elliot Tapper, emeritus professor of political science at carlton university. Elliot, great to have you back on the podcast, thanks so much for joining us today. It's so good to be here with you bill let's focus a little bit on u.s. politics and what's going on there and then we'll we'll kinda uh... if we could uh... pivot over to what's going on in ukraine because there were developments as late as about half an hour ago uh... when it comes to funding first and foremost of course is as we've talked about uh... this is a presidential election coming up in just a few months of course november of this month and uh... time flies I guess when you're in court all the time uh... it was not a good week legally for donald trump and let's talk a little bit about that element of it and also you know notwithstanding the fact that he's still facing ninety one charges the stranglehold that he seems to have on the republican party in the united states yes I'm not sure which aspect of this you want to focus on but right now we are in a situation where I think I'm going to be controversial a bit on this. Donald Trump's actually sitting pretty uh... he's had major setbacks uh... the decision that as former president he is not immune we have a brand new uh... phrase to add to all of this conversation he is now citizen trump not former president because the three court uh... three judge panel has ruled that he is not immune as he claimed as his lawyers claim from prosecution saying that that would make a mockery out of the separation of powers if he's not held accountable by anything he could order anything anytime and that's not the american way so he lost on that but it's going to be immediately appealed and that's going to end up at the supreme court pretty quickly but the reason I'm suggesting he's sitting pretty despite loss after loss is two things one, all of these court cases he's kicking down the road you pointed out that we're talking about november the campaign is already underway the nominating processes are underway he will become the nominated candidate to be the republican nominee for president and we're all wondering who will be his vice president and that's another subject altogether uh... he is apparently in position to just keep delaying and delaying and delaying and if he does that then we're in a situation where he could run for election get elected to the office then have a appoint his own justice department head who will dismiss the charges against him and once in office assuming he gets there he will then be immune also from the state level charges so all ninety one of those goes away he's in position now to help make that happen because he's got a supreme court uh... that is moving to the next big case uh... likely very likely and I've been very amused to follow this to say yes he's constitutionally able to run for president despite the fourteenth amendment and the third clause under it uh... I've been suggesting since this came months ago to the floor as a genuine issue that uh... the constitution will not forbid him from being on the ballot what we have is a situation months ago very quickly to summarize on this two important conservative jurors, judges, not judges but lawyers the founder and current head of the Federalist Society the one that provided him all those names to be appointed to the supreme court came out and said he can't be on the ballot he's guilty of insurrection and under clause article three of that amendment, fourteenth amendment he is ineligible that was followed immediately by a well-known conservative jurist uh... and a well-known liberal Harvard professor got together and said yes we've taken a look at the Federalist Society yes he's not eligible and the Colorado uh... court has now ruled yes he's not eligible and I think Maine as well so now it's gone up to the supreme court my amusement on this bill is the supreme court says uh... is packed basically with people who say we are originalist you have to go by the letter of the law and I've always thought that those conservative judges were actually radical activist judges trying to use originalism as a way to roll back the clock basically to pre pre-new deal days essentially watching them wiggle and squirm and say no I know that's what the constitution says but we're not that it doesn't apply in this case it's always been very clear that to me anyway the supreme court was not going to disbar Donald Trump from running for getting on the ballot despite the transparent the transparent evidence in front of us and the court the court decision in Colorado so that being the case what happens to all these others that's why I'm saying he's pretty well sitting pretty all of these other cases are for one reason or another postponable, deliable and something ineffable uh... that does not get any attention is he seems to have luck on his side of meeting uh... judges uh... a panel of judges I'm sorry a panel of jurists are about to meet nope they get COVID so they have to postpone it and there's been a whole series of these lucky breaks for Donald Trump so I don't look to the courts to be the effective way in any way to prevent him from becoming the nominee of the party and very possibly the next president and you're right I mean you know you hate to simply put this down to just plain luck uh... you know beneficial circumstances but it's not the way he's skated around some of these things so far it clearly doesn't seem to be uh... because of any wizardry on behalf of his lawyers either uh... they seem to be dropping the ball time and time again there's no Clarence Darrow moment here at all but again these circumstances just seem to favor Trump time and time again as we're doing this podcast today uh... we're awaiting the Supreme Court decision about whether or not he's eligible on the uh... the ballot of course in Colorado and Maine and uh... just from what we've heard so far from the hearings that were actually televised uh... that's not going to happen I mean they're going to tell him that he can run and my understanding Elliot and I wanted to get your read on this too is is the Biden administration and the Democratic Party in general didn't even want to see this go to court it's a it's a as far as they're concerned it's it's just something that's getting in the way it's not really something that that they wanted to fight on you're not going to beat Donald Trump by getting him off the ballot because a lot of other states are going to do this and some observers are suggesting right now that if that were to happen there'd be some pushback when people say well that's not fair you know we should be able to decide who we want to run for president so it's just a bad bad situation and I think the Democrats would love this to get settled today said okay fine we knew that was going to happen now let's move on with these other charges if they can yes that's that's why I started out with the big big picture I see him Donald Trump is sitting pretty I didn't see the Supreme Court this Supreme Court full of originalists who have to stick to the letter of the Constitution then we're never going to do that one way or another I think they'll find a way we could all be shocked you know the decision isn't quite released but I'm sure he'll be on the ballot and this court will back him up in that let's talk about the court itself uh... as you mentioned there's a conservative small c conservative uh... majority on this court uh... three of the uh... the judges of course have been appointed by Trump uh... one of them rather well I was going to say all three are controversial really when you get down to it uh... you know the Democrats are still wishing you know that that at least one you know when Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away a couple of years ago uh... that process would have been opened up uh... Mitch McConnell wouldn't allow it uh... simply saying well it's an election year you can't do that well of course when there was another opening they put Amy Coney Barrett in there which was just weeks before the election yeah there was already voting going on at that point and then Merrick Garland fortunately for the Republicans is actually a true believer in the law if he was out for vengeance he's now in a position to have done so but no he goes by the book he's a he's a very he would have been on that court uh... that didn't happen because of Mitch McConnell Justice, Supreme Court Justice of course uh... John Roberts uh... suggesting that uh... because there's been some discussion you and I've talked about favoritism on the courts or in the courts and situation we certainly know that the judge in Florida who's handling the Mar-a-Lago case is a a Trump appointee who has made no bones about the fact that that she's an admirer of the president and that seems to be skewing uh... what she should be doing there uh... Roberts uh... Justice Roberts says that there are no Republican judges and no Democratic judges there are American judges and we weigh those facts uh... no matter what your political affiliation an awful lot of Americans aren't buying that these days Elliot what's your thought on that? well again taking a half step back what this suggests is that yet another pillar of the American democracy is now tainted uh... is now called into question another element that has sustained the American democracy for all these years has now been drawn into the very systematic by Donald Trump uh... own actions systematic demeaning and weakening of various aspects of the American political system the Supreme Court was the one that was supposed to finally be the one that stand above all this and the lower courts of course have always had a high regard but the actions of uh... of these conservatives have really drawn that into question when you find the questionable financial situations around them uh... particularly uh... uh... Thomas but also Alito and even the Chief Justice has wiped me twelve point two million dollars in court related situations so the court itself is now caught up in this and that's one reason why I think the next few rulings are going to be scrupulously uh... put out in the most formal unquestionable constitutionally sound fashion to actually support Donald Trump unfortunately we saw that uh... the overturning of Roe v. Wade has been a central feature of contemporary American politics it turns out uh... and it was rather predictable this was this was a long long campaign to get the right judges in place appointed by the right president supported by the Federalist Society and gave them the name to do this particular action it's now of course starting to boomerang on the Republicans politically they thought it was just the greatest victory possible but Democrats are mobilizing on this issue and it probably did stop the big red wave in the midterm elections which was supposed to sweep so many Republicans to power they almost lost the House and this was a key issue the Democrats will be leaning heavily on look what that Supreme Court that Supreme Court did uh... you need Democrats now in power and that'll be a big part of the campaign going forward but talk about you know with the Republicans that as you say have a majority on the Supreme Court right now uh... a tenuous hold on Congress uh... and and of course the Senate uh... is is uh... very tenuous we're talking about a matter of just a couple of seats here why the stagnation then I mean you know they've already been dubbed by just about everybody in America as the do-nothing Congress uh... they're not passing any meaningful legislation on any side of this and then of course came the funding bills let's tie that into our discussion here uh... they were supposed to be funding for Ukraine they were supposed to be funding for Israel uh... and there was uh... of course the Republicans decided to tie this into funding for increased security at the Mexican border uh... they threatened to hold up everything and actually did for one point until Chuck Schumer kind of did an end run around that and there's going to be money going towards uh... Ukraine as a result of this and I assume to Israel too without any money for borders in situations like this but it just seems as if the mantra for the Republican Party at this stage Elliott is it's not what's best for America it's not what's best for security it's not what's best for global politics it's what's best for Donald Trump and we're just going to play you know we're going to play defense and we're going to block anything and everything just because Trump says well that's what he wants us to do A couple quick comments the first is off to the side in a way uh... the phrase do-nothing Congress was used by Harry Truman and I've always seen uh... the current President Biden really essentially he's been compared to this President and that President I think Joe Biden is really a New Deal Democrat as represented by Harry Truman who ran against successfully ran against the do-nothing Congress we do have a do-nothing Congress right now uh... the country is polarized and it's been most sharply demonstrated when laboriously an agreement was reached as you just pointed out tying together not at all in a logical sequence the whole question of providing aid for aid to Ukraine and also Israel but also Taiwan and that suddenly got all wrapped up into a package we're not going to do that unless you tack on something totally non-connected to that and that's the uh... money to do something about the border that agreement was reached in a bipartisan fashion in the Senate then Donald Trump said I don't want it I want immigration and open borders to be the center of my campaign so you cannot give that issue you can't take that issue away and also you can't give a win to Joe Biden and therefore you have to kill this and even in the Senate even in the Senate unlike the House which is not nearly as ideological or normally as paralyzed even there they wouldn't even allow it to come to a vote the deal that they themselves had worked on and they said well we're not going to vote on it because the House leader has said it will be done on arrival they didn't say because Donald Trump wants to keep it alive now what is happening and you alluded to it and it's very important but it's not a done deal is the Democrats the Speaker of the House Speaker Mr. Schumer has said you don't want to tie these together you want to keep immigration uh... alive we'll just take it out of the bill it shouldn't have been there in the first place we now will bring forward the same funding bill we wanted you to vote on before but this time we'll take off the immigration issue it's not clear that he got a big vote on that uh... but it's not at all clear it will pass in the House we'll have to see but uh... and and and since we're on that subject I want to emphasize something very important about it this is funding the bill was funding you've heard about it but sixty uh... sixty billion of that was for Ukraine there's fourteen for Israel and I think five for Taiwan or something this was a Ukraine sustainability bill the President has drawdown authority he's used it all up he needs new authority from Congress to spend more dollars and uh... we are in an existential crisis for Ukraine right now if this bill doesn't go through Ukraine is in serious difficulty Mr. Putin is smiling and uh... will do all he can I'm sure in his way to help bring Donald Trump to power his friend in the party uh... Ukraine there's money in the pipeline Ukraine can be sustained for a while the EU put forward hey sixty billion dollars that didn't support the same amount but uh... without some way of getting this money to the U.S. Congress Ukraine and the Ukrainian war is at stake and we will have a world we will have a world where Mr. Putin will have eliminated sovereignty that eliminated Ukraine will be a nuclear-armed power in the heart of Europe patiently taking apart NATO and EU unity which he himself strengthened by his invasions and then we are into a totally different geopolitical situation that's how dire this is and that's the consequences of the bill we're now talking about but why and how did we get to where we are right now here we are in twenty twenty four and and you've got well certainly Trump in his own bizarre way but even House Republicans and Senate Republicans for that matter uh... almost singing the praises of Vladimir Putin and then you've got the whack job Tucker Carson over there who's going to interview him and I guess put that on his webpage or something like that uh... but he's a good guy you know that he's uh... Tucker Carlson who some suggested just a mouthpiece for Trump anyway says that he's he's cheering for Putin against Ukraine uh... they're the bad guys Ellie we've always known that since the Cold War the Russians are the bad guys you know spreading communism we will bury you and on and on and on uh... and now all of a sudden you've got this this part of the Republican Party which is basically saying no he's our guy uh... and not necessarily Trump fans I mean you know as I say not everybody is a Trump fan even within the Republican Party but they seem to be leaning more towards the Soviet Union or to Russia well it may be the Soviet Union if Putin gets his way when all is said and done why all of a sudden has this change occurred and why do people seem to be gravitating toward it you see these people now with their American flags on the back of their pickups and they've got their t-shirts saying oh I love America etc but but they're embracing Vladimir Putin it's a very profound question and a lot of ink has been spilled on this uh... the short and quick answer is is that Donald Trump uh... has benefited from many many years of the Republican Party's uh... political positions building up building up basically isolationism building up protection of America first building up a sense that we are under threat we meaning basically uh... white Republicans of a certain age and certain religions uh... we are under threat uh... only Republicans can stand up to for that but they were also small government sprung on defense party up until recently but what happened is Donald Trump came in and tapped what the Republicans had been developing and other zeitgeist issues and became the leader of the party and the party is essentially now uh... entirely in the thrall of somebody who does not see the world as you just articulated uh... he sees the world quite differently basically through his own prism and what's good for him uh... he likes strong men we know that he he said he and Kim Jong-un fell in love uh... and of course there's all these rumors Mr. Putin has something on him and that's why he behaves that way and he in turn uh... turns around to his followers and says you gotta you have to follow me on this the base of the Republican Party which controls the electoral machinery of all those elected Republicans is under the thrall of Donald Trump who is unmoored from the traditional Republican concerns even and certainly unmoored from the geopolitics of a of a world where a country like Canada can thrive we are not idle bystanders in this if the world goes the way that Mr. Putin wants backstopped by China and then we also have the situation where China is emerging we are in a substantially different world the fate of Ukraine which seems kind of far away and you know there's a lot of money being spent let me talk about the money a bit ninety percent of the money that America allocates for Ukraine in terms of weapons gets spent in the United States to kind of invigorate the American industry a lot of those are in deep red states and they say no we don't want that money coming in to sustain their own domestic industry so it's a very bizarre situation I don't have a complete answer to it except that basically a unique personality has reaped the benefit of decades of Republican positioning and he holds that party in absolute thrall well it kind of reminds me of the old this is my opinion and don't confuse me with the facts you know I don't want to hear that because it doesn't jive with what I want to believe or what I've been told I have to believe in situations like that uh... and you're right I mean we can't look at this in isolation I mean we've got a wannabe prime minister in this side of the border too uh... that says Ukraine's this little country far far away on the other side of the world why should we be paying attention to them and on and on it goes and again kind of parroting and we've seen the editorial cartoons from Deatter and some of the other great uh... satirists in this country basically saying that now Polyev is the little puppet on Putin's knee uh... advocating for him and again there's an audience for it Elliot did you ever think that we'd see that in this country well I won't comment on the domestic politics of it except in this one fashion it's been quite clear that Canada as a whole is not friendly terrain to MAGA-ism to Trump-ism and the we are not an island there's no giant barrier between Canada and the U.S. in terms of the airways in particular what happens there washes over onto us and we're seeing that those now wash into domestic issues this is up to the two parties I will point out that certain stronghold provinces have strong Ukrainian and Canadian presence and uh... that will be very interesting and tricky politics for anybody to navigate as we go forward but uh... this is um... if Mr. I think Mr. Polyev has pivoted I thought he had pivoted I'll comment to this degree in domestic politics away from basically I will introduce MAGA politics into Canada I thought he dropped that pretty decisively that he needed to unite the right because remember there's that there's a people's party out there he needs to unite the right to become prime minister uh... and to do that you take away the thunder of the potential splitting of the right having consolidated that they can become prime minister but since a lot of the country doesn't welcome that type of politics I just uh... it'll be interesting to watch how he moves on that forward but remember he's leading now by double digits almost in the polls and and again as you say it's it's having an impact globally on everything that's going on uh... it's it's kind of like you know a lot of us are sitting here looking and I've been around with some of you when we've seen uh... a lot of change over here I mean I remember the cold war I mean I remember as a little kid growing up in Hamilton getting scared out of my wits when I heard the air raid sirens going on you know it's only a test it's only a test yeah well uh... yeah but the steel mills are right there and apparently that's one of the first targets you know so that kept me up a lot and other people too and we got away from that and then there was Gorbachev and there was detente for a while uh... now we seem to be we're trending backwards right now to one of these situations where the world seems to be such an upheaval and I guess we're looking for a hero political or otherwise who can just say whoa enough of this stuff I don't know that there's one on the horizon and I guess that's what troubles people an awful lot more it's not just the circumstance that we're in right now is we don't see a way out we don't see somebody who's going to say follow me I got this nobody that we seem comfortable with anyway but the Republican base did find somebody and people who were not in the Republican base at all found somebody I will be your voice uh... the we have to remind ourselves there's two kinds of populism there's populism of the left which uh... we see in Latin America to some degree but there's populism of the right which is now sweeping Europe to some degree and we're now the largest he got the most votes in his country so populism of the right is a phenomenon there's globalization everybody was in favor of among the elites a lot of people said it doesn't work for us it's costing us our jobs we shift all those jobs to China and sure we're getting cheap goods in the stores but we've lost our jobs America's industrial heartland was followed out so the global economic forces are certainly at play I think my own view is 2008 was a big watershed the global all but depression uh... that occurred at that point is still having ripple effects uh... uh... there's many many strands to this but the big picture here is that populism I will be that leader follow me I'll be in Latin America we have uh... in El Salvador a very interesting new character on the scene he's just been elected for a second term the whole idea of give me your face give me all the power I will look after you it's very very alluring but that's what you're asking for as a demagogue uh... yeah and god knows there seems to be no shortage of them around these days too if you look around the world uh... you know we've got Netanyahu hanging on to power in Israel right now and uh... and even the people that are pro-Israeli right now I would like to see that guy step aside and then you've got Trump uh... with what's going on here Pauly Evans is uh... I think trying to etch into that I don't know if he's going to be successful or not but I guess the thing that frustrates me otherwise when I look at this uh... Elliot is the people that are following that they're following the ideology uh... and you know I mean let's face it when communism began to flourish in the then Soviet Union you and I both know that wasn't communism that's not what Lenin wrote about uh... it was they put a label on it uh... but it wasn't communism I mean you know Putin is not one of these hey let's all share everything and everybody's on the same level he's a multi-billionaire and so are his oligarch friends and it's the same thing with other forms of government we buy into the ideology but we don't open our eyes uh... and and and understand that look at that guy's just shooting us a line here because we don't we want to believe it we don't want to hear anything that's going to shatter that that that faith that we've developed in that particular individual well we started a conversation talking about an American institution the court the resilience of our institutions which we have evolved over a couple hundred years and you know more than that and around the world in terms of democratic governance self-governance not being ruled by by uh... some leader who has power over us and we yield to that power but no leaders don't get to pick their followers, followers are supposed to pick their leaders you know that's that's democracy so the resilience of our of our institutions if I may say so what we teach civics is very very important and whether whether we're going to get out of this cycle or into a spiraling darker cycle I don't want to end on a deep dark pessimistic note uh... when we talked about domestic politics the leader of the opposition started talking about bread and butter issues and that's when he went up in the polls what are we going to do about housing what are we going to do about so when you speak about the issues that matter to people sometimes sometimes that carries over the ideological uh... the ideological baggage and alternatives republicans have mastered this in the united states you know comfort the rich and afflict the poor and mobilize culture wars for the base when you put up culture wars versus you know I'll help to make your life easier and better we'll disagree politically on how to do that one party says this and one party says that but ultimately I want to make your lives better we want to have a better society a more caring society where everybody feels part of the community uh... and we see that in canada anytime there's any kind of disaster of any kind, flood, fire people just rush to help their neighbors and when the U.S. got in trouble over 9-11 you know planes landed in Canada and were welcomed here I guess this is a complicated way of saying I'm not in despair but I'm very concerned about the direction we see in global politics exactly uh... not again I share your concern I don't want to finish this on a negative note but again on the other hand you don't want to go whistling past the graveyard I mean there are some issues that we need to be addressed and and you know my my feeling has always been that we have far too many public officials right now uh... that tell those people what they want to hear not what they need to hear and and there's a world of difference there anyway we will pick this up at a later date uh... nothing is static here there's a very fluid situation just about everywhere Elodie it's always great to have you on the podcast to talk about this thanks so much for this today you're welcome it's always good to chat about things with you Bill you betcha take care that's uh... Professor Elliot Tepper uh... of course professor emeritus of political science at Carleton University and that's it for the podcast this time around you can catch us of course spread the word about this uh... you can catch us on podcasts wherever you get your favorite podcasts until next time I'm Bill Kelly take care Bill Kelly podcast brought to you by Wisens Law personal injury lawyers listen you didn't choose to get injured but you can choose the right lawyer Wisens Law 905-522-1102 or wisenslaw.com